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By late 1998, at the height of the Clinton impeachment scandal, the dinner seemed to have stalled a bit (though it has sold out every year since at least 1993). That year, Insight magazine, a now-defunct publication of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, invited Paula Jones, whose sexual harassment complaint against Clinton got the whole ball rolling. This move was seen as in such bad taste that The New York Times the following year began the first of two firm boycotts (the second of which started after one of the Times’s 2007 guests, Karl Rove, got in a heated dust-up over politics with Sheryl Crow and the environmental activist Laurie David, and continues to this day).

Chen said he knew of no other news organization that had adopted an outright ban on attendance, but the dinner’s over-the-top aspects have made plenty of journalists think twice. “In recent years, the celebrity aspect of the dinner was being way overdone,” said Mark Knoller, the veteran CBS Radio White House correspondent and this year’s winner of the Aldo Beckman award for sustained excellence in White House coverage. “It began to remind me of the Golden Globes, even to the point of paparazzi covering the arrival of dinner guests in hopes of snapping a celebrity’s photo. At a time of war and economic distress, I’m not sure that’s the way the dinners should be staged.”

The Correspondents’ Association doesn’t really do much of anything for most of the year. Until World War II, it had a role in the credentialing of White House reporters, but post-Pearl Harbor security measures ended that. Now it advocates on behalf of broad journalistic access to the White House, haggles with the press secretary’s office about logistics and travel, occasionally rearranges the seating assignments in the White House briefing room and puts on the dinner, whose proceeds help finance scholarships for young journalists — more than $100,000 in all, up from just $25,000 a few years ago. (The association also awards endowed prizes for working journalists, and the president typically congratulates the winners, which became a problem in 1999, when Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff won the biggest award for his coverage of the Clinton sex scandal and the organizers had to make sure the president would arrive only after the awards had been presented, so he could avoid shaking Isikoff’s hand.)

Like the Gridiron, the WHCA has only one toast, “To the president of the United States,” and there is always something quaint and rather civilized about the moment of its invocation. Much ink has been spilled in recent years about whether the post-dinner comic entertainment has been too harsh (as some thought Stephen Colbert’s remarks were in 2006) or too flaccid (as Rich Little’s were the following year). During the Clinton impeachment, the association avoided the issue altogether, first by inviting Ray Romano, whose routine concentrated on child-rearing and family foibles, and the next year by having Aretha Franklin simply sing. (The year the Iraq war began, the association did the same thing with Ray Charles.)

Readers' Comments (69)

I have a really good Obama joke that I bet they won't tell at this lavish party of rich elites. I'd share it here but the progressives would howl and shriek like little baby girls and ask for my removal, while normal folks would double-over laughing.

The liberal/progressive institution that is most responsible for the installation/election of Obama, our MSM wolfpack press, get together to celebrate this weekend, how nice. I suppose we will also see the other main liberal/progressive institution that also aimed their pro-Obama propaganda at the American people in 2008, the rich elites from Hollywood. Oh and lets not forget we will probably see a lot of liberal/progressive professors from our liberal/progressive colleges and universities too, they helped a lot in 2008 too.

The real question is this................. how does an ideology that represents only about 20% of the US population, liberal/progressives, manage to represent the vast majority who hang out in our MSM wolfpack press, Hollywood, and our colleges and universities?

How does that happen?

The problem in America today is that we have a liberal/progressive Federal Government that who's "policies" reflect the view of only about 20% of the US population.

Conservatives = 40% and moderates = 35% and they are hardly represented in the three liberal/progressive instituitons mentioned above which have access to millions of Americans and we have seen how this " 3-pack" has managed to sway a lot of Ameicans who don't follow the news enough. This 3-pack has the ability as we saw in November 2008 to sway elections.

It's pretty clear that we need major affirmitive action programs, based on ideology in the three liberal/progressive "only" institutions already mentioned.

If, as Russell Baker once memorably suggested, Washington is a superannuated version of high school, the White House Correspondents’ Association is a combination of the student council and the prom committee, and its annual dinner has become — for better and for worse — the premier event of Washington’s politico-media calendar.

This Administration is run like a high school with its sophomoric president and the "Free press" running around like a bunch of freshmen girls waiting for PBHO to look at them. This reminds us of the Clinton Administration!

I have a really good Obama joke that I bet they won't tell at this lavish party of rich elites. I'd share it here but the progressives would howl and shriek like little baby girls and ask for my removal, while normal folks would double-over laughing.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I hope it is not another WH incest joke . SNL and CBS's David Letterman should layoff Obama .

How wonderful. All the tough, objective reporters can do what they do best; look good, act stupid and brown-nose the people they are supposed to cover. There's nothing like the press corps prom to remind American's of how useless and self serving the nation's media elite have become.

Given near 10% unemployment, this is also another one of those Marie Antoinette moments for the Obama Administration. Nothing like a conspicuous demonstration of why we work so hard to pay taxes.

I'm beginning to understand Obama's idea of hope and change. It involves spreading the wealth from those who earn it to the useless, corrupt thugs who steal it and the sycophants around them who want to get rich off the spoils.

Why is there still nothing in the press about Obama's people calling out the riot squad to break up the 65 plus year old grandmothers rioting Tea Party in Illinios? Who does not believe there is a true love affair between press and the Messiah?

Personally, it is well past time to stop treating these people; these human beings, who are no better than any other person in the entire world, like rock stars.

They just don't deserve that kind of credit.

They are not famous, they are people. They are not somehow, 'better,' than anyone else; they are just like Joe or Jane D. Block.

To be very plain, I am sick of finding them on the front pages of the media when there are citizens of this nation who are accomplishing things that are far more relevant and constructive, as well as useful to society as a whole than the actions of these common people that are being treated as if they were something special.

The media needs to start presenting the citizens of America and our exceptional actions that promote American society, and leave these common people who are being treated as if they were somehow special or something out of the picture entirely.

Our country has had a bad trend over the years to elevate "celebrity," to ever higher and dizzying heights....The WHCA Dinner is simply an example of this evolution and the mixture of entertainment and politics, usually not held as a positive by some in the press (especially those who have bad ratings or newspaper sales numbers!). I find the contradiction in the acceptance of this mixing of the trivial with the serious interesting.

Barack Obama's success is the product of the increased importance of celebrity in our society and the mixture of politics/news with entertainment is where his skill is paramount. We have seen that that does not necessarily mean good leadership or success in unifying our people, but it seems the press doesn't really want to examine that reality.

People who complain about "entertainment news," ratings, "the 24 hour TV news cycle, or the press' focus on the "horse race" or punditry but love to be seen at this dinner or think it's just great are not being intellectually honest. Even Obama, who likes to give himself populist cred when he decries the Washington "game," plays it well and flourishes in it.....This hypocrisy is a telling sign of the bad place our nation has been going to for these many years.

I believe most journalists not only have a political/ideological bias, but a problem handling their becoming enamored with "celebrity." If the subject they are responsible to cover OBJECTIVELY creates that aura of celebrity/history/icon, the typical journalist today is incapable of fulfilling his/her responsibility to accurately and DEEPLY cover the subject.....It happened with George W. Bush....It happened with Clinton and now it has happened with Obama.....

BTW....The reporters themselves wish to become celebrities.....I especially am very concerned about those wishing to make lots and lots of money and achieve fame with that top selling book.....It has been revealed that many now do not report many important details known to them presently in orde for such information to help sell their book LATER....This is wrong, and I believe not having some of the more damaging information about our leaders presently changes the course of events.

ACCESS to the leader, the inside game, also influences the coverage....If someone gives positive coverage, they gain access. How is this not detrimental to our democracy? Use of anonymous sources for almost EVERYTHING is also a very bad trend. Reporters want that fame and fortune just like any other human but their profession has an ethical duty for objectivity that is being compromised for personal gain.

Trying to get fame and fortune as a correspondent is wrong....Go into music, acting, the arts, sports for the fame/money or pursue a financial career if money is all important....THE PROFESSIONS, need people prepared to put those priorites down on the list and put the moral and ethical obligations at the top.....Too many reporters, and most are just loving the dinner, show that those priorities are very misplaced.

There is little that raises my ire about the overall disappointing state of journalism in the nation's capital more than the Correspondents Dinner. Journalists should be getting the facts to the public, not engaging in this kind of self-congratulatory spectacle. No matter how many journalists slap each other on the back, it doesn't make their work product good. This kind of ostentatious display of connectedness compromises the work of journalists in the eyes of the public. It puts the emphasis on gaining access and a seat at the table with the right people over quality and investigation.

I have a really good Obama joke that I bet they won't tell at this lavish party of rich elites. I'd share it here but the progressives would howl and shriek like little baby girls and ask for my removal, while normal folks would double-over laughing.

Boy, I'll bet it's hilarious. No realy - must be a hoot. Back to humor reality, here's an even better one for, as you put it, normal folks:

Bush Presidential Library

Here's what the draft plans for the George W. Bush Library now call for:

The Alberto Gonzales Room - Where you can't remember any of the exhibits.

The Hurricane Katrina Room - It's still under construction.

The Texas Air National Guard Room - Where you don't have to even show up.

The Walter Reed Hospital Room - Where they don't let you in.

The Guantanamo Bay Room - Where they don't let you out.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room - Nobody has been able to find it.

The War in Iraq Room - After you complete your first tour, they can force you to go back for your second and third and fourth and fifth tours.

The K-Street Project Gift Shop - Where you can buy an election, or, if no one cares, steal one.

The Men's Room - Where you could meet a Republican Senator (or two).

To be fair, the President has done some good things, and so the museum will have an electron microscope to help you locate them.

When asked, President Bush said that he didn't care so much about the individual exhibits as long as his museum was better than his father's.